Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

He was born Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes in Lyon, Rhône, France.

In 1844 he went to Paris, where he studied under Eugene Delacroix and Thomas Couture. It was not until a number of years later when the government of France acquired one of his works that he gained any sort of wide recognition. Although he studied with some of the romanticists, his work is seen as symbolist in nature and he is credited with influencing an entire generation.

In Montmartre, he had an affair with one of his models, Suzanne Valadon, who would become one of the leading female artists of the day.

He is noted for painting murals, several of which can be seen at the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Paris and Poitiers, the Sorbonne, and the Paris Panthéon, as well as in the United States at the Boston, Massachusetts Public Library. His easel paintings can be found in many American and European galleries. Some of them are:

• Death and the Maiden
• The Dream
• The Poor Fisherman
• Vigilance
• The Meditation
• Mary Magdalene at St Baume
• Saint Genoveva
• Young Girls at the Seaside
• Mad Woman at the Edge of the Sea
• Hope
• Kneeling nude woman, viewed from back